Briar walked out toward the nearby river with Lia in tow, a net draped over her back and Lia carrying a bag to collect things with. Her nerves were on edge with everything that was going on and she decided that she just needed some kind of task to keep her mind off of how many wolves had gotten sick as the world continued to devolve into a crazier and crazier state. She had forced herself to come back home once Art regained his sight, but it hadn't been easy to do. It seemed like every time she left Artorias something bad happened to him. He went back home after spending the season here in Armada and had gotten into that terrible fight with Oxx. He recovered from that and she came home only to return to The Hallows and find him moments before he was blinded. She told herself it was just consequence, but she couldn't help but worry that something else would happen while she was away from him and she wouldn't be there to help. Plus, he was fully in the position of Aegis now and it just felt wrong that she wasn't there with him to help him with the role.

She pushed the thoughts out of her mind and tried to focus on the task at hand. She wasn't the best hunter, but she had been working on a fishing net to keep with their supplies to the pack could share it and take advantage of the plentiful fish in the river so she figured she might as well give it a try to make sure it was sturdy. She hadn't had much of a chance to really get into crafting before now, but it was becoming a bit of a hobby and the new blacksmith that had joined the pack had given her some tips one of the times he came around trying to talk to Lia. She didn't know if her handmaiden had picked up on the fact that he was there to see her, but Briar had. She glanced at her fire-marked friend with a little smile. "Hopefully there will be some good herbs for you to gather while we're out here too," she told her. They both needed a good distraction and if they could be productive at the same time then even better.

"Briar Zeitgeist Fatalis"

Lia was of course always happy to accompany her Mistress wherever she might lead. The slightly smaller wolf held the bag to the side, and was trotting at her Lady's side. The two wolves were an uncommon sight in the land now. Both of them unaffected by the strange curses dripping from the orifices of the majority of their pack mates.

She, too, was keen to try out the fishing nets. She did wish to skimp on her Lady’s dinner pot, and feared she might have to stretch their supply if the pack continued to remain afflicted as they were. The net was sure to work a charm however, what with Briars time, and the advice from the friendly blacksmith having gone into crafting it.

“Of course, My Lady. I’ll help you get the net in and then take a look” she promised, offering her a warm smile back, and nudged her head lightly against the side of the tawny wolf.


"Speech"

Briar chuckled softly as Lia bumped her side with her head and Briar lightly bumped Lia's side with her hip in return. The two of them had become fast friends in the time since Artorias brought her to the Armada and she was extremely grateful to have Lia here. She wasn't just a good Handmaiden and helper with pretty much any of their tasks, but she kept the days she had left living in Boreas from being so lonely. When they reached the river in question she slipped the net from her back and started carefully unfurling it with Lia's help. "This part of the river doesn't seem to be flowing too fast," she said once the net was ready to be released into the water, dipping a paw into the flowing river experimentally. "Hopefully our net won't get swept away here!"

She took one side of the net while Lia took the other and the pair of them managed well enough getting the net thrown out into the river after a couple of attempts. She could see how they might get pretty good at this with a bit of time and practice! If they were successful then this could be a great way for them to help provide for the pack while everyone was laid up with these strange illnesses. "I'll stay here and make sure the net doesn't run away from us," she said with a chuckle, holding on to a part of the net that was on the bank so they would have something to pull it in from. "You go ahead and start looking for herbs, I'll call you when it looks like we have enough fish to try pulling it in!"

She watched Lia go off in search of herbs, Willow following her Handmaiden dutifully, and then turned her turquoise gaze back to the net to watch it at work. Her mind wandered as it always did to Art, wondering how he was doing and worrying whether these strange illnesses were effecting The Hallows in the same way they were Armada. It did make her concerned that maybe something else had happened to Art, especially after the blinding he only just recently recovered from, but she tried not to dwell on it too much. Surely if something dire were to happen someone would send for her. There was hopefully no reason for her to worry right now and her hurrying there to worry over him when he surely had his paws full as an alpha would do no good.

To her delight while she was musing about her boyfriend several fish ended up hung in the net. It was big enough that it probably could have held more, but there was at least enough for a first test run. She also didn't want to get it so heavy that it was difficult for the two of them to pull out. "Lia! Come help me with the net!" she called, looking back over her shoulder till she spotted her friend coming back to join her at the edge of the river. She passed off one of the edges of the net to Lia before gripping the other edge between her teeth. She gave Lia a nod and then began to pull, but was surprised at how difficult it was. It didn't cross her mind that maybe the net was hung on something until she felt the woven ropes give and they suddenly stumbled backward as the resistance on the net all at once disappeared.

She blinked with surprise once she caught her footing, looking down at the net that was now on the ground in front of them. Her ears flicked back with disappointment when she saw their fish were gone, a large hole torn in the net making her sigh unhappily. "Damn! What did it even get caught on? A rock? It would have had to have been a pretty sharp rock to tear through this..." She looked back toward the river with a frown, but then her eyes caught the glimmer of something just slightly sticking out of the water. Her brows pulled together with a tilt of her head as she abandoned the net in favor of investigating the gleam of metal she thought she saw. "Did you see that?" she questioned, wondering if maybe she imagined it.

"Briar Zeitgeist Fatalis"

Briar nudged her back with her hip, and the little handmaiden could see the happiness in Briar, the companionship. This was far beyond anything Lia had experienced before, and she cherished every moment with Briar. Her Mistress, her friend, her protector. She was something special and cherished in this world.

When they arrived at a point Briar approved of, Lia quickly got to work helping her unfurl the net. Briar expressed a hope it wouldn’t get washed away, and Lia watched her Mistress dip a toe in the water. “Just don’t try diving in after it!” Lia teased as Briar came back to the netting. No doubt if her lady got swept down the river, Lia would have to find a way to fish her out - and without having learned to swim, that was bound to be a recipe for disaster.

Manipulating the netting just right to get it into the water turned out to be a bit of a mission, but Lia was good at reading the cues of others, and Briar was strong and sure. Together they made a good team, and the net was cast.

As Briar took watch by the netting, the little handmaiden gave a quick glance at the netting and then to her Mistress. She hoped nothing would go awry while she was herb gathering… but Briar was right, the pack needed it. She didn’t venture too far away from Briar as she started to search for herbs. Her ill-fated search for flowers wouldn’t be soon forgotten.

She had gathered a small bundle when Briar’s voice summoned her back. Returning at a brisk trott, she dutifully grabbed the offered end. When indicated, the handmaiden pulled, equally as surprised by the difficulty of it. Not wanting to disappoint, she leaned her weight back, putting her back into it with a grunt. Then suddenly, it gave way! Lia toppled with a little noise of surprise, already stammering an apology “Mistress, i’m sorry, I-” the old habit dying hard before she saw there was no blame in Briar, only disappointment at the broken net. She still felt a little miserable at this venture going awry, she earlier happiness seeming to have evaporated from her Mistress's face. “It glinted like metal, Mistress. Perhaps some sort of debris?”

"Speech"

Briar hummed thoughtfully when Lia suggested that there might be some kind of metal debris in the water that she had seen from the glint just over the surface of the water. That would have been an easy enough explanation and she gave a little shrug. "Well... I guess since the net is ruined anyway we might as well try to use the thicker edges here to try and pull the metal out. I know dad has been on the look out for metals and such for Ruga to use anyway so it won't be a complete loss." She looked down at her torn net and started using her sharpened claws to cut through parts of the net until it was mostly like a rope with a portion of netting hanging from it so it would be a little less unwieldy to haul around. She handed one end to Lia and she took the other end to drag it back over to the edge of the river, abandoning the other half she cut off.

"So I think we can throw it out like we did before and kind of hook around it and drag it to shore... Hopefully we've already dislodged it a bit from pulling on it so hard before—whatever it is." With that plan in mind she had Lia hold on to one end while she held the other and she flung the netted rope out into the water in a similar path that they had before. She saw the very top of a curved, silver colored metal peeking out occasionally from the top of the water as the waves of the river passed by so that at least gave her something to aim for. She did the initial pulling until they had the rope hooked around the metal piece again and then he motioned for Lia to start pulling too. They pulled back on the rope together and it was still surprisingly stuck pretty firmly, but after a few hard tugs she felt it start to come loose. She was just glad that whatever it was clearly had some part of it that the rope could wrap around pretty snuggly.

It did finally come free, making her stumble back a couple steps again, but she wasn't quite as thrown off balance this time since she was anticipating it. What came tumbling partially onto the shore shocked her and for a second she couldn't believe her eyes. The grip and hilt of a very familiar sword were laying on the bank of the river with most of the blade still in the water and while she was looking at it with disbelief it started to slide away. "No!" she gasped, rushing forward to catch the grip of the sword with her teeth before it could slide away, pulling it out of the water and laying it carefully on the ground between her and Lia. There was no mistaking the shape of the sword and the amber stones that were set into the cross guard—the same kind of stones that were embedded in the bracelet she wore around her ankle.

"It's... It's Artorias' sword! It's Embershard!" she exclaimed, looking up at Lia with a huge grin, her tail wagging like crazy. She knew how upset he had been about losing the sword that had meant so much to him and to think they just happened to find it in the river that he had been washed away in after fighting Oxx... "He's going to be so relieved! We should go take it to him right-" her words cut off as she looked at the sword again, noticing all the dings and nicks along the blade, all the spots that had become tarnished and rusted from being in the water for so long. One of the facets that had held one of the amber stones was even empty now, the stone knocked loose and undoubtedly washed away. She frowned with thought, her paw tracing the weapon for a moment before looking back up at Lia with a determined nod. "Actually... I think we need to go talk to Ruga first. He should be able to fix this, don't you think?"

"Briar Zeitgeist Fatalis"

“Good thinking, My Lady” Lia agreed, seeing how Briar was determined to ensure they were able to bring something back from this venture. She smiled, and timidly reached over to grab Briars paw, squeezing it for a second. She hoped her Lady wasn’t too disappointed about the broken netting. Releasing her tawny paw, she leaned back to give Briar room to trim the netting. Grabbing the offered end when Briar handed it to her.

The plan was simple enough, and Lia got herself into position, helping her Lady to fling the netting, and then pulling when she was bid. When it at last it was pulled close enough to shore that the two of them could see it in detail, it was a shock. Lia stared in disbelief, remembering the hilt from the blade Art had proudly worn, even when they had first met. When he had arrived at the slave market, proudly dressed. She knew this sword, knew who it belonged to. Briar would of course be even more familiar with the weapon. She began to talk excitedly and then paused. Indeed, Lia could understand why. The blade wasn’t in the best condition. “Of course Lady Briar - I doubt theres much that blacksmith can’t fix” she stately comfortingly. She leaned forward, placing a paw gently over the blade, and then back to her Mistress. “Aegis Artorias will be mighty impressed when you show this to him.” she said, eyeing Briar with a knowing smile.


"Speech"

Briar smiled as Lia confirmed her thought. Surely the blacksmith could handle this task. "It's settled then. We'll take this to Ruga then and have him repair it and then we'll take it to The Hallows with us in the summer." She was looking forward to moving to The Hallows to be with Artorias so much, but finding this and having a bit of a project ahead of her in getting it restored to its former glory at least felt like she would have something to look forward to in the meantime. She was already looking forward to the look on Art's face when she walked up to the border carrying Embershard. She lifted her turquoise gaze back to Lia's again when she mentioned how impressed Artorias was going to be when she brought it back to him, the look she was given making her blush and grin. "Well... I'm sure he'll be even more impressed once Ruga finishes sprucing it up a bit," she replied with a chuckle and a bashful flick of her ears. She would have done anything to make Art happy regardless, but she also knew Lia was probably right. She gave a nod back toward the pack and added, "Come on, lets start getting back." Picking up the sword by its weathered hilt, she started trotting back toward the Armada, thinking to herself that she was actually surprised at how heavy the blade was and wondering how Art could swing it around so effortlessly.

"Briar Zeitgeist Fatalis"